Hello all and happy holidays! We hope everyone is having a lovely holiday season with loved ones, enjoying some downtime (hopefully!) and feeling the holiday spirit. Although ours got off to a bit of a rough start, things have been getting better, a Christmas miracle of sorts!
Connor's road to recovery has been painfully slow, at least for me. It's almost as if the potassium bromide delayed or stalled his postictal phase so that once it started leaving his body, he began going through all the things he goes through after the seizures are over - the blindness, the endless pacing, the distant behavior, it's very distressing to witness and made worse when it goes on for such a long period of time as his always does.
About a week before Christmas, I noticed two things - he was shaking a lot and he began urinating on the floor, three times over two days, which is VERY unlike him. It made me start to wonder if perhaps his blood sugar was low, so I gave him some vanilla ice cream (I always keep it handy as it's good to give after a seizure to stabilize his blood sugar) and suddenly, he stopped trembling and he perked up! Because of the change I decided to test my theory that maybe he's hypoglycemic, over the course of the next few days I started feeding him smaller meals more often rather than two meals a day and adding Manuka Honey to his food, as well as giving him a bit when he wakes up and right before bed. At this time I also added in a supplement called Life Gold, which is made for pets with cancer but is a great overall health supplement as it cleanses the body and keeps things running at an optimum level. Adding the honey helped but when I added the Life Gold is when things really changed.
Suddenly, he was wanting to get up in the morning, rather than me having to wake him. After two doses (one day) the following morning he was actually playful and play bowed, something he always does in the mornings when getting ready to go out but hadn't done since before the Thanksgiving cluster seizures. I couldn't believe my eyes, his personality was returning to normal, almost overnight. Over the course of the week he's pretty much stopped pacing, his vision is clearly improved, he's going up and down the stairs by himself, and when I came home from running errands yesterday he was so excited he jumped up on me - I nearly cried!
I'm continuing to give him multiple small meals (adding extra protein) with the Manuka Honey and the Life Gold, which I swear by at this point. In a few more weeks we will try to reintroduce the potassium bromide in a very small dose, every few days, so he can slowly acclimate to it. We are also going to be visiting a neurologist, thank you to the generosity of some incredible friends who donated the funds to make it possible, for which I'm eternally grateful. I will continue to update his condition, really hoping he will be back to his adventurous, happy self soon!
As for Angus, he's hanging tough, being an adorable punk (his usual self) and has finally stopped throwing tantrums - I think he's happy to see his brother getting back to normal, too.
